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CNESMAG 82 - Satellite telecommunications : welcome to a new era

Few people imagine that it’s satellite telecommunications that first brought space into our daily lives. Today, there’s no programme on TV that isn’t beamed through a satellite, no text message that doesn’t make a detour via geostationary orbit and no positional fix that doesn’t use signals from constellations circling Earth thousands of kilometres above our heads. But this is just a start. In the hyper-connected world of the future, only satellites will be able to bring Internet services to everyone on the planet, not only so that people can communicate better but also to guarantee their safety and health, and to support many more applications yet to be invented.

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Did you know that 541 municipalities in France is landline "not spots" with no Internet access? That Thales and Airbus hold a 50% share of the global market for commercial geostationary satellites? That electric propulsion offers additional payload capacity for operators?

Invisible but not infinite, the radiofrequency spectrum is increasingly in demand from applications. So how is this precious resource shared? Alexandre Vallet, Chief of the space services department (SSD) at the international telecommunication union (ITU)